The old couple had left the wagon now, and were walking up a particularly steep and stony stretch of the road to lighten the load on old Whitey, dutifully pulling the rattling, rickety vehicle along with scant guidance. Editha kept in advance, swinging her sunbonnet by the string, her elaborately coiffed head still on display. Now and then as she recalled an item of interest to detail, she paused and stepped backward after a nonchalant girlish fashion, while Benjie, old and battered and broken, found it an arduous task to plod along with laggard, dislocated, and irregular gait at the tail-board of the wagon. They were in the midst of the sunset now. It lay in a broad, dusky-red splendor over all the far, green valleys, and the mountains had garbed themselves in richest purple. Sweets were in the air, seeming more than fragrance; the inhalation was like the quaffing of some delicious elixir, filling the veins with a sort of ethereal ecstasy. The balsam firs imbued the atmosphere with subtle strength, and the lungs expanded to garner it. Flowers under foot, the fresh tinkle of a crystal rill, the cry of a belated bird, all the bliss of home-coming in his thrilling note as he winged his way over the crest--these were the incidents of the climb. “I tell ye, Benjie,”--Editha once more turned to walk slowly backward, swinging her bonnet by the string,--“it’s a big thing ter be rich.” “Oh,” suddenly cried the anguished Benjie, with a poignant wail, his fortitude collapsing at last, “I wish you war rich! That be what ye keer fer; I know it now. I wish ye could hev hed riches--yer heart’s desire! I wish I hed never seen you-’uns, an’ ye hed never seen me!” Editha stood stock-still in the road as though petrified. Old Whitey, her progress barred, paused not unwillingly, and the rattle of the wagon ceased for the nonce. Benjie, doubly disconsolate in the consciousness of his self-betrayal, leaned heavily against the motionless wheel and gazed shrinkingly at the visible wrath gathering in his helpmate’s eyes. “Man,” she cried, and Benjie felt as though the mountain had fallen on him, “hev ye plumb turned fool? Now,” she went on with a stern intonation, “ye tell me what ye mean by that sayin’, else I’ll fling ye over the bluff or die tryin’.” “Oh, nuthin’, nuthin’, ’Ditha,” said the miserable Benjie, all the cherished values of his life falling about him in undiscriminated wreck. “Then I’ll make my own understandin’ outen yer words, an’ I’ll hold the gredge ag’in’ ye ez long ez I live,” she protested. “Waal, then,” snarled Benjie, “ye take heed ye make the words jes like I said ’em. I’ll stand ter ’em. _I_ never f’und out how ter tell lies in Shaftesvul. I’ll stand ter my words.” “Ye wished I could hev hed riches,” Editha ponderingly recapitulated his phrases. Then she looked up, her blue eyes severe and her flushed face set. “An’ will ye tell me what’s the reason I couldn’t hev hed riches--old Tom fool!” Thus the lovers!